Rebecca Agnew, Infinite West, 2022 by Lizzy Marshall

Rebecca Agnew, Infinite West, 2022

However, change and continuity are always closely intertwined in the transformation of human society. So, while the after will be different, it will be built on the before.

It would be illusory to presume that nationalism is as defined as the borders of our island Australia. Nationalism is slippery and collides with the past and present, similarly to the tides that shape our shores. Historically, migration, colonisation and Traditional Owners have all flooded, formed and reformed our sense of national identity. But these predecessors have been visible with overlapping intersections, and perplexities. How we now revise our idea of nationalism as our borders have rendered us insular as shaped by the invisible pandemic is a cause for critical enquiry. 

A preamble of understanding would position nationalism, both pre-COVID and in its wake, as aspirational, imaginary and collective. However, at the heart of nationalism are identity issues both subjective and generic. These are subject to the flux of the social, political and economic – and where the individual resides is as complex as the virus itself.

As the pandemic evolved and traversed borders it united nations under the guise of global cooperability and yet simultaneously divided communities. The global cooperability laid bare global inequalities, not least spearheaded by the West. This undercurrent was further entrenched through isolationist policies that moved from global contexts to the divisions of states, cities, neighbourhoods, suburbs, families, partners, friends and individuals.

The global domino effect of near-simultaneous lockdowns was not a shared experience. The complexities of inequalities surfaced in ways we never had seen before. Each locale was treated differently, each demographic was clearly defined and yet we were governed by a sense of nationalism that never prevailed. Gender, race and economic factors all impacted decision making by the state and, ultimately, at a federal level. A response to the infringements of civil liberties could not be sold as a new type of nationalism. The closure of borders was easy to understand as an island state but the closure of suburbs, neighbourhoods and, worse, the most vulnerable members of our communities, was less palatable. 

While watching the daily COVID cases mount turned into a new national sport, government control became a competitive anxiety as our personal information was sequestered and data retention became a new fear in itself. Tracking apps became the weapon against the pandemic wars provided through our personal data. We complied. We gave it away. We were complicit. And yet, as we noted that our responses were not united, did we expect to replace utilitarianism with a new form of nationalism? How much we gave away is yet to be fully understood and the ramifications are worth examining in the future. What we can appreciate is that nationalism is as undefined as ever. What has been better defined is how much governmental control can infringe upon our corporeal selves. Vaccinated? Unvaccinated? Anti-Vaxxer? Boosted once, twice, thrice? Our physical selves were divided by government mandates and subjected to public scrutiny like never before. 

Previously, Australia had experienced surges of nationalism as the aftermath of great historical successes: the ANZAC victory, Brisbane’s World Expo, the America’s Cup triumph and, of course, the 2000 Olympics. How does Australia experience nationalism under the strain of a pandemic that did not unite, but ultimately divided its citizens on stolen land never ceded?

It has been said that this is an exhibition in two parts: before and after. 

Under the guise of cultural hybridity and plurality of perspectives, we can position Rebecca Agnew’s view of the world. Agnew’s Infinite West (2022) becomes a metaphor for the constant flux of intersecting perceptions that make up nationalism. Her feminist protagonists span time and cultures and wrestle with a landscape of patriarchy. The world of social and political organisation is questioned as Agnew’s cowgirl protagonists straddle this divide of pre-pandemic and after.

Hybrid in skill set and referential to disrupting cultural norms by appropriation and popular culture mashups, Agnew is a New Zealand–born resident of Australia. Her practice investigates the terrain of borders through the feminist framework. She creates stop animation narratives that loop time in less of a continuum but an overlapping duration. Through this loop, Infinite West becomes a metaphor for the continuum of colonial structures which decolonialism defies. However, her Barbiesque cowgirls remind us that the true role of colonisation is felt through the governance of our physical selves and erosion of identity.

Much like our understanding of nationalism, Infinite West provides an untidy collection of symbols, metaphors and textures in Agnew’s conflation of the historical and cultural. Her narrative begins with the female pharaoh Hatshepsut, who posthumously suffered the indignity of desecration and amputation of her place in the royal and the divine. Within Part I Hatshepsut Summons Her Heir, Hatshepsut removes the symbol of divination – the pharaoh’s beard, and appears to praise the phallic order that provided the seat of power she would endeavour to share. Agnew’s narrative progresses to a surreal, almost dystopian landscape, encapsulating a speculative genre of post-COVID nationalism. Here the historical collides with the contemporary, and Hatshepsut’s usurping of power is later reclaimed by the cowgirl as she wrestles and castrates cacti penises. Sadly, this is to the demise of all the characters central to Infinite West’s narrative.

Much like the similarities with a pre-COVID understanding of nationalism, Infinite West draws on collectivity, identity and, certainly, the role of governance over the body. The cowgirl defies the cowboy stereotype: one of being alone, free and without a fixed identity. Here, the pink velour–wearing heroine never appears alone in a landscape dominated by phalluses and morphed creatures. Central to the narrative, our cowgirl focuses on rescuing a stolen primal egg. Again, Agnew draws on themes of collectivism, cultural hybridity and reclamation of the right of reproductive cycles. As seen in Part IV, the barbiesque cowgirl summons through her dreamcatcher the all feminist support within the phallus desert. Through this, collective feminist action prevails and the egg is rescued. Reproductive rights are central to Infinite West’s themes and not untimely in a post-COVID examination of nationalism especially within the context of the USA’s reversal of Roe v Wade; inclusive to this are post-feminist gender conversations around identity and the corporeal body. -Perhaps Agnew’s greatest metaphor is the idea of an enduring (infinite) Western hegemony.

Lizzy Marshall

UPCOMING PANEL DISCUSSION

In Conversation Panel
on Thursday 11 August at 1pm at Macquarie University Art Gallery

A broad discussion about nation and nationhood, the ongoing effects of the pandemic and what it means to contemporary art practices. 

Rhonda Davis, Leonard Janiszewski, Lizzy Marshall, Andrew Simpson and NC Qin

The current exhibition Nationalism in the Wake of COVID at the Macquarie University Art Gallery is grabbing attention, creating conversation and generating reflection, post-pandemic.

Group exhibition features ‘Infinte West’

FIND OUT MORE HERE

Country: Born and Bred

INFINITE WEST pivots around a central character – an athleisure wearing, fertilising cowgirl who wrangles phallic cactuses like cattle and harnesses the power of the Native American Indians through a dreamcatcher to pollinate them and produce eggs – yes, you can make this stuff up. Rebecca Agnew constructs a post male-female sexual reproductive world where beings are not born, they’re farmed. Much like in Margert Atwood’s dystopia Gilead, fertility is a blessing bestowed on few.

As with any of Agnew’s stop-motion animations, the symbolism in INFINITE WEST is extremely dense. To break down the narrative into its parts would be an injustice to the parable that is INFINITE WEST. Rather, this text responds to the two central themes Agnew is addressing, - the bigoted Country and Western genre and reproductive rights - situating these issues within contemporary pop-cultural discourse.

The cowboy-hero is a potent figure in American and Western culture. Cowboys supposedly embody many of the values associated with being a ‘good American man’: freedom, self-reliance, and independence. The myth, which revolves around this figure as a standard of masculinity – usually portrays a lonesome gunslinger, white, working class, a symbol of manifest destiny. In the twentieth century, cowboys became poster men for a new hyper-masculinity that emphasised ruggedness, aggressiveness, and physical fitness. The American image of the cowboy became a global export – adopted and transformed by European culture we saw the rise of the Spaghetti Western. In contemporary depictions, cowboys are portrayed as caricatures of toxic masculinity: sexist, gamblers with drinking problems.

The image of the Wild-West cowboy can be traced back to the European settlement of America and the confrontation they had with nature and the native civilisations. The narrative has always been one of racist divide and has been used recently as part of the rise of both segregation and anti-immigrant racism in America. It’s no surprise that this myth of the cowboy-hero and the culture it perpetuates has been adopted by far-right, Republican, conservative, White-America nationalists to appeal to voters. Trump even swapped his iconic red ‘Make America Great Again’ cap for a cowboy hat to address a group in Dallas. 

Many non-western cultures from all around the world have the same horse-riding herdsman: gauchos of Latin America; the llaneros of Colombia and Venezuela; the vaqueiros of the Brazilian north-east; csikos of Hungary, or puszta of Spain; various others of the Cossack communities of south Russian and Ukrainian; the stockmen of Australian; and the Mexican Vaqueros, whom the costume of the American cowboy is largely based, with handlebar moustache, lasso, and chaps.

The Country and Western music and film genres are responsible for stereotyping cowboys against a ‘native enemy’. These genres all but erased the legacy of Native and black cowboys. But recent revival of the country and western genre in popular culture has brought up issues of racism and highlighted the othering and victimisation of native and black Americans. 

Since the 1970’s the Country music establishment has been known for turning its back on musicians who blend its unique sound and what it stands for with other genres – such as pop, blues, rock and rap. It has rejected musicians that opened up the genre to more diverse audiences. In the 1980’s Country suffered a major identity crisis as Country and Rock n Roll were intertwined. By the 90’s a new wave came along and exploded any remaining barriers between Country, Rock and Pop – enter Shinia Twain and the line dancing movement that brought the genre to mass global consumption.

With popularity came backlash from the traditional Country music establishment, which felt Country music had lost its authenticity. They responded by establishing themself as an authority, by looking back to the genre’s ‘roots’ and working-class spirit – it became a genre unto itself.

In 2019, there was public outcry when Lil Nas X’s record Old Town Road was removed by Billboard from its Country charts. It brought up a long overdue conversation about racism in Country music. The song featured a trap beat, as many Country songs do. But its cowboy symbolism, Southern draw, and banjo-driven instrumental was unmistakably Country. It fuelled debate about what Country music is and who gets to decide. In a statement to Rolling Stone, the editors explained: 

“it does not embrace enough elements of today’s Country music to chart in its current version.”

A lot of digital ink was spilled as critics widely recognised the double standard being applied to a black artist and dubbed the removal an erasure of black history. Old Town Road became the anthem for a movement known as the ‘Yeehaw Agenda’ – a new wave of black artists that have been reclaiming the cowboy archetype across music, film, fashion, and literature. The movement seeks to highlight the historical erasure of black cowboy culture and how the prevalence of white cowboy mythology continues to have an impact. Musicians such as Solange, Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Lizzo and Megan Thee Stallion and movies like The Harder They Fall, They Die By Dawn, and Concrete Cowboy are all trying to re-write the narrative. 

Despite seeing a step towards equality for women in the past few decades, we’ve seen falling birth rates, oppressive policies regarding contraception and abortion and a repositioning of women as workers, not breeders, in capitalist society. Women in the workplace are disincentivised and sometimes even held back or punished for choosing to have a family or even for just being of child-bearing age. 

Globally conservativism calls for the return to ‘family values’ and the dismantling of health care services for contraception and abortion. The Middle East has long been a plagued with issues over women’s rights. In August 2021, when the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, some of the first news articles to come out related to the dismantling of women’s rights: travel, education, ability to earn an income, dress code, sexuality, and control of their own health and wellbeing. By September, the Afghani Women's Affairs Ministry was completely abolished. 

While in Argentina, Ireland and the United States protestors have adorned outfits of red with white bonnets, the outfit of Margaret Atwood’s Handmaids, to protest changes to abortion laws and the oppression of women’s rights. It has become a powerful symbol of feminist protest in places where laws do not allow women to access birth control, emergency contraception or abortion. As Atwood explains the outfit is a symbol of ‘violent oppression and fertility’. 

Texas which now forbids abortions after six weeks, has become the first US state to effectively eliminate most procedures, state wide. While in Mississippi, a case is currently before the Supreme Court that would see the end to women’s constitutional right to abortion as established by Roe V Wade in 1973. Other Republican-led states are racing to follow suit.

Is it any surprise then, that these southern conservatives that are dismantling women’s right to abortion, are the same states that perpetuate the narrative of toxic cowboy masculinity as portrayed in the Country and Western genre?  Is it any surprise that the two overlap demographically and psychographically?

Although Rebecca Agnew’s INFINITE WEST does not directly address the examples highlighted in this text, the artwork uses the Country and Western genre to create a parallel dystopia rooted within the harsh realities of our past and present.

Whilst liberally minded individuals and minority groups across the world are amplifying their voices through the arts, social media, and protests – the conservative agenda is tightening its grip and strengthening its declarations. The divide between conservatism and progressivism grows.

It’s a new frontier, y’all.

Siobhan Sloper, 2022.